Teaching With: ‘Sinking Islands, Floating Nation’

In this short documentary, “Sinking Islands, Floating Nation,” a filmmaker and visual anthropologist follows Anote Tong, former president of the Republic of Kiribati, as he travels the world to ring the alarm about climate change’s dire consequences for his nation. Rising sea levels are forcing Kiribati to make difficult choices.

Students

1. Watch the seven-minute film above. While you watch, you might take notes using our Film Club Double-Entry Journal (PDF) to help you remember specific moments.

2. After watching, think about these questions:

• What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?

• Were there any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew?

• What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

• What questions do you still have?

3. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

4. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

Five years ago, I could not locate the Republic of Kiribati on a map. Yet last month, I spent Christmas with its former president, Anote Tong, and his family in their beautiful ancestral homeland. In just a few years, the citizens of this low-lying Pacific atoll nation have profoundly affected my outlook on our planet and its prospects. The latest climate estimates project that sea levels could rise as much as six feet within this century, threatening to put Kiribati under water.

Over the past few years, I have followed Anote Tong as he has traveled the world to ring the alarm about climate change’s dire consequences. Kiribati is a heartbreaking case study for those interested in taking stock of our rapidly accelerating climate woes. The country’s carbon footprint is the smallest in the world, and yet it finds itself most gravely affected by a phenomenon it had nothing to do with. Its citizens’ fate will eventually be ours, too.

This century will see unprecedented climate-induced migration, and the Kiribati case is merely the beginning. By conservative estimates, some 200 million citizens will be forced to flee their homelands by 2050. Where will we relocate all these climate refugees? For this unfathomable problem, we are now seeing equally unfathomable solutions. One example comes from the Japanese engineering firm Shimizu, which has pitched a futuristic floating-island concept, relying on technology that has yet to be invented, at prices barely any nation could afford (some estimates put an island at $450 billion). As long as we keep recklessly pillaging our planet, we may need to start taking projects like this more seriously.

That’s all the more problematic for the people of Kiribati, who cherish their strong connection with their land and the spirits they believe are tied to it. If the island of Kiribati disappears and the people abandon their ancestral homeland, where do the spirits go? Most ethnologists would agree that the land and our immediate environment are intimately connected with language, social organization and culture. A people losing its land in a sense loses itself. Taking that further, Mr. Tong argues that when land disappears, the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds also forever vanishes.